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Almost time for the annual defrosting the freezer Holiday extravaganza!

Mattb4

Mattb4

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As the Seasons roll round, and the deep freezers build up ice on the insides, eventually it reaches the time to shutdown and defrost. The younger crowd might not be aware of this Holiday since much of the newer more modern freezers (and almost all the refrigerators) have auto defrost. The problem with auto defrost from an off grid perspective is that it requires a heating coil in the freezer and that takes more power. An additional problem with auto defrost is it shortens the time you can store frozen food.

So the Holiday begins with digging through all the unused frozen goods from who knows when you put it in the freezer. You pick those items you really need to eat for the holiday meal to avoid having to throw away things of value. You also might toss the helplessly out of date heavily freezer burned items so to free up more space once the freezer is placed back into service. Once the freezer is bone empty the defrost begins!

The freezer thermostat is turned off or it is unplugged. Door is opened for more rapid ice removal (though some innovators place a hot kettle of water inside with the door closed to start a quicker thaw). As the ice melts and floods your floor below the freezer it is only a matter of hours until the holiday runs its course. Once all ice is gone the freezer can be turned back on and the frozen food restored to it.

Happy Defrost day everyone!
 
yodamota said:
what about the manual defrost? paint scraper and a container to catch the ice in. :D :D :D leave the lower half of the food in. scrap for 10 minutes, put food back in.....
Click to expand...
I was contemplating trying a paint / ice scraper and a wet dry vac to quickly vac out the ice shavings.
 
My method is not for the nervous or poor planners -

  • Wait until August or so
  • buy beer
  • plan ahead and put jugs of water in to freeze hard.
  • put everything into ice chests or a handy clean bathtub if I must (seldom)
  • take the freezer out into the driveway
  • connect a hose from the hot water faucet
  • hose it all out avoiding the thermostat
  • once the ice is gone, towel dry
  • put it all back in and turn it on
  • once down to temp remove the ice jugs
  • Drink a beer or 3 to congradulate myself on a job well done
  • Make a note to buy more beer for next year
 
yodamota said:
what about the manual defrost? paint scraper and a container to catch the ice in. :D :D :D leave the lower half of the food in. scrap for 10 minutes, put food back in.....
Click to expand...
If you do not allow the coils to clear of ice completely it puts additional loading on the unit. Scraping of surface ice does not reach the coils on many freezers and if it did you could damage them and cause coolant leakage.

Scraping of some of the ice accumulation is a stop gap you do if the annual Holiday defrost day has not happened yet. Or if an item you want is frozen to the sides or shelves of the freezer.
 
cs1234 said:
I was contemplating trying a paint / ice scraper and a wet dry vac to quickly vac out the ice shavings.
Click to expand...
It works fine if you stay on top of the shelves, but if you miss and puncture a tube it will cost you a freezer And the other downside is you can scrape the paint and make the shelves rust.
 
Damn...2 days ago someone in my household forgot to close the freezer door properly and the ice levels grew a lot.
Had to defrost it.
Hate the cleanup and the water on the floor (front door type, halfsize).

Must be something that goes around eh?
 
LydMekk said:
Damn...2 days ago someone in my household forgot to close the freezer door properly and the ice levels grew a lot.
Had to defrost it.
Hate the cleanup and the water on the floor (front door type, halfsize).

Must be something that goes around eh?
Click to expand...

Feel lucky, nobody does that around my house until the day AFTER I defrost it.
 
Yeah I have a standup commercial unit from 1983 and its shelves are the cooling coils. Once a year we stop buying food that would get frozen and eat our way to a semi empty freezer. Move all the oddball stuff left to the freezer compartment of the fridge and shut off with the door open. I run the drain hose across the kitchen and out the side door and use a water hose to speed melt the shelves clear. Usually takes about 3 hours of elbow grease and a small but steady stream of water. Once you get enough off you can pull off high chunks of ice. It’s also a great time to get rid of the stuff that never gets used I use a marker to date stuff and more than once have gotten stuff untouched from the year prior.

Edit this is at main house, cabin has a small chest type that I just run empty and then fill with water and drain via hose
 
Newer chest freezers for the win. Better seal so they don't collect as much, cold air doesn't exchange as much when they are opened, no exposed coils to deal with, slightly better efficiency (no fan), no condenser coils to clean, bathtub style design lends itself to hosing down.

It's been years since I've defrosted mine and it has perhaps lost 5 to 10 percent of its space due to frost. Since we don't use it to the brim then that frost is merely power outage insurance, and also takes up space so any air exchange that does occur when opening is reduced.

If my wife would go for it I'd like to set one up as a fridge just for the efficiency gains.
 
Does anybody else find the frost kind of sharp/rough? I always feel like I'm going to scrape the heck out of myself on it.
 
I've found a block of ice at the bottom.
That was outdoors, so not sure if due to rain getting past the seal, or drain tube blocked and it backed up inside. Will check.
Also an inch or two for an indoors freezer, so I'm thinking that one is the drain blocked.

I replaced defrost thermostat on an old, tired Freon-12 fridge but still iced up. Maybe the defrost timer is intermittent?
I should have Freon 12a arriving this week, will try out (it's now the outside fridge, so less fire worry.)
 
Thankfully it's hot as hell here I'm just waiting for the dogs to finish off the last 30kg of chicken then I'll wheel the chest freezer outside and leave it for a few hours then open the plugs and drop all that lovely poultry blood and grey water onto a lychee tree outside the back door. It's always fascinating then spending the evening watching today geckos eat the flies that come for the blood.IMG_20230628_142408~2.jpg
 
ThaiTaffy said:
Thankfully it's hot as hell here I'm just waiting for the dogs to finish off the last 30kg of chicken then I'll wheel the chest freezer outside and leave it for a few hours then open the plugs and drop all that lovely poultry blood and grey water onto a lychee tree outside the back door. It's always fascinating then spending the evening watching today geckos eat the flies that come for the blood.View attachment 228766
Click to expand...
i could use me some descent sized geckos at the cabin, but its too cold for them I think. we get these huge azz crickets that are the nastiest thinks on multiple legs... only thing worse is those huge huntsmen spiders
 
ThaiTaffy said:
Thankfully it's hot as hell here I'm just waiting for the dogs to finish off the last 30kg of chicken then I'll wheel the chest freezer outside and leave it for a few hours then open the plugs and drop all that lovely poultry blood and grey water onto a lychee tree outside the back door. It's always fascinating then spending the evening watching today geckos eat the flies that come for the blood.View attachment 228766
Click to expand...



awwww, I haven't seen a Gecko since I lived in Guam. Had to keep cleaning them out of the telephone interface box, they would lay eggs in there and make the call quality go to crap.
 
robbob2112 said:
awwww, I haven't seen a Gecko since I lived in Guam. Had to keep cleaning them out of the telephone interface box, they would lay eggs in there and make the call quality go to crap.
Click to expand...
You won't find these in a telephone interface box there over 1ft long and some have almost a 2inch wide head.

For scale that's a piece of 2 inch wide L bracket for holding up an AC unit
 
We have a chest freezer that they claim should be defrosted every 6 months. WHAT? No.
Been 2 years. I can barely get the baskets out, have to sometimes chip some frost away. Rest of the freezer down lower looks good though, probably because we have it pretty solidly packed. But that's a problem too - where the heck am I supposed to put everything while defosting the freezer?!!

Maybe I should do it this winter, if it gets cold enough I could just stick it in boxes outside!
 
SparkyJJO said:
We have a chest freezer that they claim should be defrosted every 6 months. WHAT? No.
Been 2 years. I can barely get the baskets out, have to sometimes chip some frost away. Rest of the freezer down lower looks good though, probably because we have it pretty solidly packed. But that's a problem too - where the heck am I supposed to put everything while defosting the freezer?!!

Maybe I should do it this winter, if it gets cold enough I could just stick it in boxes outside!
Click to expand...
Over the years I manged to gather up quite a few Styrofoam chests. These came to my place from ordering fresh seafood. Back when my Dad was alive he was really particular about having seafood and the freshest possible. Here in NW AR there are not many local providers of that. If you want Fresh caught wild Alaska Salmon, Ling Cod, clams, or Snow crab you must have it sent to you.

I am not as much of a seafood addict so it has been sometime since a new chest has shown up but between the ones I have, and the big ice chests on the back of my truck for when I buy frozen stuff this time of year,there is places to empty the deep freezers into for long enough to defrost.
 
ThaiTaffy said:
Eat it of course, unless it's bodies.
Click to expand...
Um, 15 cu ft full meat is a little hard to eat all at once.
I didn't buy a big freezer with the assumption I'd have to fill it, then gradually empty over the course of a year so I can defrost it. We keep it full-ish, stock rotated. Buy stuff in bulk when it is cheaper, then use it, and when we have another big sale, stock up again. Right now, it is fairly full with ground beef, sausage, and some whole chickens we got on sale over the last few months.
 
''';
SparkyJJO said:
Um, 15 cu ft full meat is a little hard to eat all at once.
I didn't buy a big freezer with the assumption I'd have to fill it, then gradually empty over the course of a year so I can defrost it. We keep it full-ish, stock rotated. Buy stuff in bulk when it is cheaper, then use it, and when we have another big sale, stock up again. Right now, it is fairly full with ground beef, sausage, and some whole chickens we got on sale over the last few months.
Click to expand...
Yes we do the same generally we have around 100kg of whole chickens we buy when the price is reduced then every month or so we check if prices are high or low and replenish. 6 malinois crosses and 8 various other dogs are expensive to feed and buying kibble would bankrupt us if bought at full price so we tend to wait for sales and buy a few 100 kg of kibble and supplement it with chicken and rice. But then defrosts are based on pure luck we have maybe 2 weeks worth of chicken left currently so hopefully we can defrost then but if the boss spots a deal it might have to wait a few more months.
 
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